‘Thirteen’ causes anxiety, ‘Simple Life’ true horror

Panicking about the moral decay of our youth has long been a favorite American pastime. But this year, that anxiety may have reached another milestone.

One offering was “Thirteen,” a film that centers on two teenage girls who experiment with drugs and body piercings, fight with dysfunctional adults, and engage in sexual acts that cannot be described in a family newspaper. Elegantly filmed by Catherine Hardwicke, the movie had an added measure of frisson because its script was co-written by a then-13-year-old girl, which supposedly gave it an authenticity that added to its shock value. And there is little doubt that -- for any parent of a teenage daughter, such as myself -- the notion of adolescent self-destruction sends a shiver down the spine.

But aside from the age -- 13 does seems young for such transgressions -- the film seems to say more about the selective memory of adults than the corruption of our children. This is not the first generation to rebel with a mix of sex and drugs, a theme that, frankly, has become a bit tired. And as far as teenage horrors go, I think the fate of Natalie Wood in the 1961 film “Splendor in the Grass” -- a girl who is driven to insanity because she is unwilling to satisfy Warren Beatty’s sexual cravings -- is far worse than that of the teenagers in “Thirteen,” who may or may not go on to become upstanding members of the American consumer class.

Far more horrifying, by comparison, are the girls of “The Simple Life.” With her smug self-absorption and inane, class-conscious bleatings, Paris Hilton exemplifies something truly fierce and troubling: a kind of youthful narcissism that is probably unequaled in the history of mankind, certainly before the advent of TV and video recorders. What “Simple Life” tells us is relatively more interesting and new: The ruling class has become immeasurably stupider and out of touch.

And American youth today can’t even do decadence right.